It's usually transplants who can't drive in California. They get confused by 6 lane freeways, can't figure out how to not bottle up traffic, and don't realize that the roads get really really slick when it rains for the first time in 6 months. There's a difference between taking reasonable precautions because of a very real danger, and overreacting to something that is completely harmless. Or, even more amusing, grossly over exaggerating the actual effects of that harmless thing.

It's a 5.8. It was over 80 miles from the capital. Nearly 300 miles from NY (and Southern Ohio), and even farther from Boston. You can feel a 5.8 from 80 miles away, but it's pretty mild. A sensation of motion, and some swaying of stuff around you, with really precariously held together stuff maybe falling. 300 miles? You can feel a 5.8 at that distance, but it's not going to do any damage. Boston? I'm frankly amazed they even felt it at all, yet they were evacuating buildings. Amazing overreaction IMO.

I'm told that you could feel it here, (a bit East of Pittsburgh) but I didn't notice anything. Apparently the people that felt it were either sitting down or leaning against a wall at the time.

Which means you're about a hundred miles closer to the epicenter than NY, and nearly 300 miles closer than Boston. I'm not discounting folks in tall non-earthquake designed buildings noticing it pretty well, but it couldn't have been more than just noticing that it was an earthquake and then getting scared because it was an earthquake and not because of anything it actually did.

I've only been in one earthquake, back in 2nd or 3rd grade or so, right outside Charleston, South Carolina. Which apparently is where many of the earthquakes in that state originate. It lasted for quite some time, and I was in the Cafeteria eating lunch at school at the time. Large speakers were swaying and bouncing on their support changes. It was a bit scary... and I was ... 7 at the time?

That shake site is pretty good. Looked it up, 8/21/1992, a 4.1 Earthquake right outside Charleston. I would have been in 2nd Grade at the time. The earthquake zone is even named after the town I lived in.

You have to realize that the geography of the area we're talking about.The mantel is far more stable here, so when there is a earthquake it may be felt farther then you will experience out west.

From the reports I gotten from friends anyone west of the mountains in VA, didn't feel the quake as much as those who lived NE of the epicenter. I was actually surprised at how far the quake was from us, since all I had to compared was the 6.0 Coalinga Quake, that I lived 20 miles nearly due west to, in 1983.

That one was a more rolling motion, compare to this one that felt far more like going over the rumble strip on the shoulder of the road. With building codes that don't expect major quakes, though historical the Madrid Quake has made many people wonder if they should, we have damage as far away as Baltimore from what I had heard.

In the place of a Dark Lord you would have a Queen! Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the Morn! Treacherous as the Seas! Stronger than the foundations of the Earth! All shall love me and despair! -ElneClare

This Post is written in Elnese, If it was an actual Post, it would make sense.

In the place of a Dark Lord you would have a Queen! Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the Morn! Treacherous as the Seas! Stronger than the foundations of the Earth! All shall love me and despair! -ElneClare

This Post is written in Elnese, If it was an actual Post, it would make sense.

I spent a year down in South Carolina driving between work and Myrtle Beach. Every time it'd rain just a little bit, you'd see cars crashed on the side of the road. I even saw one flipped over on its roof in a ditch.

I came back to Michigan and was talking with my parents. My dad mentioned that up here in the North we get the roads Salted, Sanded, and Scraped for 8 months out of the year. That down in the South, the oils from cars build up, and then the light sprinkling of water leaves a oily film on the road. I kinda nodded and thought that was a pretty good explanation.

But then I realized that I was also driving on those roads at the same time as these motorists, and didn't notice any real issues with that light rain falling on a relatively sunny summer afternoon...

don't realize that the roads get really really slick when it rains for the first time in 6 months.

Ah, so you just can't drive in the rain and need to freak out. Well, rain is much more dangerous than an earthquake so that makes sense.

165 people die in the US each year from rain related effects (flooding, crashes, collapsing roofs, etc). That's just "heavy rain and floods", and does not count deaths due to lightning, hurricanes, tornadoes, windstorms, and other weather related effects. We're just looking at people who die because moisture comes down from the sky in the form of rain. In contrast, over the past 30 years, 145 people have died in the US from earthquakes.

So yeah. Rain is a **** of a lot more dangerous than Earthquakes. About 12 times more dangerous.

Want me to look up yearly property damage from rain and compare to earthquakes as well? I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest we'll see a similar result.

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Go on now and get all defensive and tell just how dangerous this scary... "rain"... is

/shrug

I don't see people panicking because it's raining Joph. So in the whole "who's a chicken" debate, I think Californians win over New Yorkers hands down.

I spent a year down in South Carolina driving between work and Myrtle Beach. Every time it'd rain just a little bit, you'd see cars crashed on the side of the road. I even saw one flipped over on its roof in a ditch.

I came back to Michigan and was talking with my parents. My dad mentioned that up here in the North we get the roads Salted, Sanded, and Scraped for 8 months out of the year. That down in the South, the oils from cars build up, and then the light sprinkling of water leaves a oily film on the road. I kinda nodded and thought that was a pretty good explanation.

But then I realized that I was also driving on those roads at the same time as these motorists, and didn't notice any real issues with that light rain falling on a relatively sunny summer afternoon...

I think those warm-folk are just terrible drivers.

South Carolina is not Southern California. South Carolina gets about 4 times as much rain per year (and that's statewide average, Southern California gets about half the state average), so whatever effect you were seeing probably didn't actually have anything to do with high oil buildup (or not much). I fully accept that folks in other parts of the country may just be crappy drivers.

If you were driving in Southern California and you saw this, I guarantee you'd notice the slipperiness of the roads as well. It's extremely noticeable if you try to make a fast turn, or accelerate too fast. I've seen a car, starting from a stop at a left turn light, traveling at what would be a completely normal speed just spin out in the middle of the intersection and slide into the the far corner (thankfully missing the cars sitting at the light facing the other direction, but not by much). His mistake? He accelerated at a fast but normally completely safe speed while making a turn. All while a very gentle light rain was going on.

What usually happens is that people who are used to driving in rain come to California and about 6 months later it rains for the first time. They see everyone slowing down and cautiously making turns and whatnot and think "These people don't know how to drive in the rain. Hahaha!". That person drives faster thinking he's cooler or better than everyone else, then he hits a slick spot, or just takes a turn too fast, and spins out and sheepishly becomes one of those people on the side of the road that everyone thinks are Californians who can't drive in the rain.

No, you just magically find yourself incapable of driving because you have magical dangerous rain

Yeah. Remember that time when it rained in California and everyone panicked and started calling people to see if they were also getting rained on, and tweeting about it, and shutting down the whole state? Funny. I don't remember that happening either.

gbaji, stop being a ****. We don't get earthquakes over here and when it does happen, it freaks some people out because most people have never experienced something like that. Rain is actually quite a bit more common and nothing to freak out about.

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publiusvarus wrote:

we all know liberals are well adjusted american citizens who only want what's best for society. While conservatives are evil money grubbing scum who only want to sh*t on the little man and rob the world of its resources.

Whenever my family from San Diego comes out east, they always panic when it's like 50 degrees out. My cousin bundles her kids in like 8 layers of clothes, and they constantly say things like "How can you people stand this?!"

Remember that time when it rained in California and everyone panicked and started calling people to see if they were also getting rained on, and tweeting about it, and shutting down the whole state?

I remember in January you guys shutting down your roads and stranding people because of a little snow and rain.

What was it? A whole six inches in Lancaster?

And that was sufficient to actually flood the roads necessitating the shutdown out of an actual real safety hazard. I get evacuating buildings if there's actual structural damage caused by an earthquake, just as I get closing a road if there's actual flooding. But closing and evacuating nearly every government building in a 500 mile radius of a 5.8 earthquake is a gross overreaction.

It would be like closing every road in the state because of a slightly heavier than normal morning dew.

And yeah, I get that people on the East Coast aren't used to that. But that's the point. They're overreacting because it's something unknown that they aren't used to, and it scares them. It's just amazing to me that an amount of shaking that people here would maybe pause briefly to comment on and then shrug and continue whatever they were doing would prompt such widespread and massive panic and confusion. It would never occur to me to evacuate a building I was in just because of a 5.8 earthquake (or equivalent, yes I'm aware of the construction differences), and no one would call for an evacuation unless there was actual damage and danger.

It's really about perception differences. People who've never lived in areas with lots of earthquakes only know what they've seen on TV and in movies, where everything shakes violently and buildings crumble and fall everywhere. They think that's what all earthquakes are like and assume that any building they're in may crumble and collapse from any earthquake large enough for them to feel. The rest of us know that this isn't the case and don't worry about them unless the building we're in actually collapses, or causes some sort of danger. We know that as a general rule, if the earthquake didn't actually cause the building you're in to collapse, odds are that it's not going to collapse, so there's no need to panic.

Are you arguing that Californians overreact too much to rain, or that they don't? Cause I don't see how 75% of drivers apparently not caring enough about the rain and fog to turn their lights on counts as "overreacting".

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And yeah, I get that people on the East Coast aren't used to that

They don't spaz out over 6" of rain.

We don't either.

The irony here is that the problems caused by rain in California isn't people overreacting to it, but failing to react sufficiently. They don't slow down enough during a first rain when the roads are slick, and they don't turn on their lights when visibility is low, and trust me, if we don't shut the roads down when they flood they will just plow right through the flooded roads and get stuck and/or swept off into a flood channel. It's often a lack of caution, and a general sense that a little rain can't possibly be dangerous that gets people in trouble in California. Because here, the roads do get very slick, and they aren't designed for good water flow and will flood.

We're really the opposite of panicky here. But go on with your little fantasy. It's amusing as ****.